Buy and large
Smallman’s latest is hewn from a seam of dark ore at the heart of Mordor’s Mount Doom
IALREADY OWN A beautifully finished, 15-year-old-plus, overengineered and brilliantly reliable Honda that happens to be among the best looking motorcycles ever made. But I’ve just bought another and it couldn’t be more different…
A well-used Honda VTR1000 SP2 is now joined by a spankingly clean 10,000-mile Honda CB1300 in glorious red and white. It’s the proper naked one, not the half-faired S version that looks like it’s had a breakfast bar attached.
The key difference between the SP2 and the same-era CB is heft. Weighing in at around 250kg, the 1300 is almost 30kg more than the V-twin.
Its acquisition from Doncaster heating engineer Stuart Royston for £3500 was a pleasure. You can tell a lot from the detail in an ad and the pictures and it was amazing to me – and Stuart – that his as-new bike had no bidders at its asking price of £3800. Dealers were flogging shonky, tat-loaded ones with two to three times the mileage for similar money.
The ride back to London on the hottest day of the year gave me blisters from hanging on. Suspension that cossets, a seat as broad as Norfolk and a stout range means no fuel stop required. I plan two changes. A pair of sporty Metzeler M7RRS unemployed in the workshop will replace the perfectly OK Michelin Pilot Road 2s. I’ll also look to move the suspension performance from ‘armchair’ to ‘crisp’. That, I suspect, won’t be achievable with the standard Showas.
The bike’s arrival signals a new phase in my bike life. My daughter wants to ride on the back and I may rekindle my courting days with my wife by taking her to Box Hill. Slamming a 190bhp S1000RR through the gears before a tailsnaking low side has been costly on the wallet and the spine. The Big Thirteen will at least be cheaper. As for my back...